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Today, like every 2nd Monday in October, the United States celebrates Columbus Day as a national holiday. There always has been a lot of anti-Columbus propaganda – and for good reason. Christopher Columbus is generally credited with beginning the invasion which wiped out entire tribes of Native Americans. Columbus, himself, was an Italian explorer who claimed the New World for his benefactors, Ferdinand and Isabella. After he reached the New World, one of his objectives was the spread of Christianity to all of the unclean infidels. This, of course led to more killing. Only 25 years after Columbus landed in Hispaniola, over a quarter of a million Arawaks were killed or died from smallpox and other diseases in which they had no immunity. More notable is the way Columbus ruled when he was appointed Governor of Hispaniola. He ruled with an iron fist and slaughter many natives that would not capitulate to being his slaves. If anyone takes the time to actually study the life of Christopher Columbus, it becomes very clear he was not the stuff of holidays. As far as discovering America, the Norse beat him here by at least two hundred years. So, how did an official US holiday become named after a murderous opportunist? Christians. Specifically, the Knights of Columbus. This is the same group that forced President Eisenhower to add the words “In god we trust” to the Pledge of Allegiance. The Knights persuaded FDR to proclaim the first Columbus Day on Oct. 12th, 1937. The Knights of Columbus contains many Italian Catholics. Columbus was an Italian Catholic. Do the math.

Yesterday’s asinine decision by the Supreme Court to allow sectarian prayer at town meetings is a colossal mistake. The 5-4 decision in favor of allowing the Town of Greece NY to open town meetings with a Christian Prayer directly attacks all non-Christians. Justice Elena Kagan got it right when she wrote the minority opinion.

“When the citizens of this country approach their government, they do so only as Americans, not as members of one faith or another, …and that means that even in a partly legislative body, they should not confront government-sponsored worship that divides them along religious lines.”

–Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan

The majority decision is wrong on many counts. It fails the 1971 “Lemon test” ruling that states that every government action must meet three criteria:

1 Must have a secular purpose

2 Must not advance or prohibit religion

3 Must try to avoid government entanglement with religion

Allowing Christian prayer at government meetings does not pass the test.

The decision fails in making government accessible to the general public. Why should anyone even bother trying to participate in local government when they are made to feel like they don’t belong? Why would any rational person want to even be anywhere near a place where people practice an irrational ritual that insults and excludes them?

“The First Amendment is not a majority rule, and government may not seek to define permissible categories of religious speech. Once it invites prayer into the public sphere, government must permit a prayer-giver to address his or her own God or gods as conscience dictates.”

–Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy

Justice Kennedy must have been smoking crack! This is a ridiculous misinterpretation of the First Amendment. The whole point is for the government not to invite religion into the public sphere. Government can not endorse any religion. If it does, then we go through the whole “whose god?” nonsense. The answer is clearly, “No god.”

By allowing Christian prayer at public government meetings, all non-Christians are made to feel they are outsiders. I recently read a Jewish response to the decision saying that it does not offend them to hear a Christian prayer at a government meeting. Like Hades is doesn’t! That is a full out lie. Jewish, Muslim, Hindu apologists, you are not helping anyone – especially yourselves. If you think your god or prayers would be welcome at a town meeting, I encourage you to try it. Just wear a face mask because you are going to get punched. This ruling was specifically for Christian prayer.

I am all for respecting one’s right to have one’s own religion and one’s own god(s). That is not the issue. The issue is that their religion and their imaginary friends do not belong in my tax-paid-for public government meeting. You cannot have freedom of religion in government without freedom from religion in government.

Once again, Thomas Jefferson and rational thinking should have carried the day and the vote – but didn’t.

“I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”

Much of the world has been lauding the red-caped-club for their “enlightened” decision to make Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio their new leader. Bergoglio is the first Pope from the Western Hemisphere. World leaders are rejoicing. They declare, “The Catholic Church has finally broken with tradition and put someone different in charge.” “The reign of Benedict the Horrible is finally over.” “The Church will now reach out to the disenfranchised and begin to rebuild its institution for the betterment of society.” Maybe the world will actually become a better place. If you believe that, please stop reading now. You don’t deserve that privilege.

Let’s review some facts. About 17% of the world claims to be Catholic. However, many of those Catholics are not good Catholics. Not good, in the sense that they do not follow the directives of their leaders very well. Fact: The Catholic Church prohibits contraception, abortion, and homosexuality. Fact: Many Catholics use contraception, do not oppose abortion, and accept gays. Now consider the fact that many Catholic priests have been convicted of raping and sodomizing young children. In the past few decades the Catholic Church has been besieged with lawsuits for the impropriety of its leaders. The sex abuse scandals that have surfaced are so large that many dioceses cannot even sustain themselves due to the settlements and convictions made against them. Case and point: The Milwaukee Archdiocese recently declared bankruptcy to avoid having to pay their unfortunate victims any restitution. Many Catholics are losing faith in the Catholic institution and are choosing to leave their churches for something else. They are disillusioned and feel betrayed by the very institution that is supposed to guiding and nourishing them. In other words, the sheep are finally waking up and leaving their flock for greener and less harmful pastures.

The Catholic Church is aware of the mass exodus of its parishioners. However, rather than adapt to reality and its newly enlightened members, the Church has chosen to do as it always does and ignore common sense and common decency and continue to spew its anachronistic, hurtful, virulence at those who it should instead be embracing. The election of Bergoglio is no exception. For starters, let’s just make a couple of things clear. The Catholic Church will never allow abortion, gays, or anything else that it feels will loosen its controlling grip on the asinine sexual morality it preaches. That said; let’s look at the new Pope.

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, DBA Pope Frances, is a church conservative on many issues. Like all of his costumed predecessors he believes women are the source of original sin. It is doubtful if he would ever support women priests. He has also been quoted as saying,

” …same-sex marriage attacks God’s plan.”

And that,

“…gay people adopting children is an act of discrimination against children. “

He has referred to the pro-choice “movement” as a

“culture of death.”

Really? “Lighten up Frances!” He has also repeatedly opposed the free distribution of contraceptives in Argentina.

As freethinking, rational, non-believers, we must be extremely vigilant not to allow the misinformation and ill-begotten pretense of reform to obfuscate the truth that, new pope or not, the Catholic Church is, and most likely will remain, a divisive, harmful monster that prevents people from living good, moral and meaningful lives.

Yes, it is official. The Republican Party is the party of rape and religion. Today, Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock actually stated that when a woman becomes pregnant during a rape, “that’s something God intended.” The real kicker is that the Republican Party stood by Mourdock’s asinine remark. Why are there female republicans? Are they that insecure, that ignorant, and that masochistic that they cannot understand that their entire sex has just been marginalized to that of sub-human status?

Almost every stupid, misleading, and untrue remark made by republicans invokes God! When moronic Vice-Presidential candidate Paul Ryan was asked his opinion on abortion during a debate, the first words out of his mouth were, “I’m a Catholic.” Really? Who cares? No one asked you for your religion. Your religion has no place in our government! The current batch of Republican candidates are so ignorant about United States history that most even deny that Thomas Jefferson was the one who pushed to keep religion out of our government. Jefferson explained that the First amendment states that the government of the United States shall, “”make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.” Jefferson’s wall has protected the rights and freedoms of both the religious and non-religious for over 200 years. But apparently today’s Republicans no longer want that protection.

The late, conservative Senator Barry Goldwater predicted the demise of the Republican Party decades ago, “Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem.” Well, his worst fears have been realized. We have a terrible damn problem. The Republican Party is the party of God. Almost every Republican candidate feels they must invoke an imaginary friend to respond to even the most basic of questions. And for those of us that do not believe in gods, the Republican Party has effectively shut us out. But that apparently is not enough. It is very clear that women have no place in a Republican Party world either.

In addition to Mourdock’s remark, there was Todd Akin, Republican Senate nominee from Missouri, who said this past August that pregnancy as a result of “legitimate rape” is rare as “the female body has ways to try and shut that whole thing down”. What planet does Akin live on? Perhaps if he studied biology instead of reading abusive, violent, anti-woman BS scripture espousing the propaganda of an insane, malevolent monster of a god, he may have not made such a stupid remark. However, he did make the remark. Mourdock, Akin, Ryan, and most other Republicans hate women. They might not come right out and say it, but their actions and words betray their intent. Republicans hate women. That is the fact, and for the life of me I cannot understand how any woman, regardless of her lack of education or experience could, even from a fleeting moment, entertain the idea of voting for a Republican. That is, unless they truly relish the idea of surrendering all of their freedoms and they support a world where safe and affordable health care and reproductive choice are illegal and society accepts rape as a legitimate action sanctioned by God.

Please stop killing innocent people. Then again, maybe you shouldn’t stop. By killing innocent people, you Muslims are providing a textbook example of why religion is deleterious to your health. So, maybe I should thank you for helping to prove my point – religion kills!

To recap: A whacked-out Christian fundamentalist posing as a whacked-out Jew made a distasteful movie mocking the Islamic prophet Mohammad. Then you super whacked-out Muslim fundamentalists took offense and decided to escalate your war against the United States, and actually started killing Americans! Now you, along with most other theists, are blaming the crazy Christian fundamentalist and the United States, for all the violence. Really? It doesn’t matter if the movie is in poor taste or not. The movie itself is irrelevant. It’s just a movie! When I saw The Passion of Christ it made me sick. It was the most distasteful B.S. I had ever seen. All the Jews should have gone out and killed Mel Gibson for making that piece of crap. But they didn’t. It was just a movie.

You say that Islam is a peaceful religion. I am so sick and tired of Islamic apologists saying that. It is not peaceful to slaughter innocent people because you don’t like a movie, cartoon, book, or anything that may be offensive to your crazy myopic reality-phobic worldview. All religions are silly and all religions can and should be mocked. You don’t like it, too bad. Grow up! What’s the matter? Your centuries-old religious dogma can’t survive a little fun by a harmless movie?

The murders you Muslims committed this past week in the name the “peaceful religion’s peaceful prophet” need to be answered with swift and, if necessary, deadly force. The murder of innocents never “okay.” And just to clarify, I’m not suggesting that the United States declare war on Libya or Egypt, or any other Muslim country. The Libyan and Egyptian governments did not attack the embassy or commit murder. Those acts were carried out by you, the Muslim fundies; the same Muslim fundies that too many people here in the United States back down and actually defend. We need to put an end to this over-sensitive politically correct garbage. Freedom of speech means that the people, all people, even the whacked-out Christian fundamentalist nut-jobs, have a right to make a movie mocking the super whacked-out Muslim fundamentalist s nut-jobs’ prophet. People need to chill.

To all you semi-rational theists, think about this: Imagine going out and killing someone just because you’re upset at something that happened across the world that had absolutely nothing what-so-ever to do with the person you just killed. What would that make you? It would make you a murderer. And murderers need to be punished. So do these terrorists. Stop apologizing for criminals and terrorists, and saying we need to respect their different world views. Personally I hate Christian fundies as much as I hate Muslim fundies; and I’m not trying to defend the silly movie, but technically the movie isn’t illegal – or even hostile. It’s just a movie. We don’t need to kill people over it.

I thank Darwin that none of my fellow atheists go on killing sprees in the name of reason. Because if they eliminated all the unreasonable people, there wouldn’t be a whole lot people left.